Bahrain: Thousands attend funeral of teenage boy killed during protest

Bahrain: Thousands attend funeral of teenage boy killed during protest

2011-09-02 04:32:34 GMT+7 (ICT)

MANAMA (BNO NEWS) -- Thousands of people on Thursday attended the funeral of a teenage boy who was killed on Wednesday morning as security forces attempted to disperse a protest in the Bahraini village of Sitra.

14-year old Ali Jawad Ahmed was among a small crowd of protesters who had gathered on late Tuesday and early Wednesday morning in the village of Sitra, an oil hub 6 miles (9.6 kilometers) south of the Bahraini capital of Manama.

According to the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, the group was engaged in a peaceful anti-government march when security forces allegedly used 'excessive force' against the demonstrators.

Isa Hassan, the teenager's uncle, said police officers had overreacted when confronted by the small group of protesters. He said security forces fired a tear gas canister from about 7 meters (21 feet) away, directly at the crowd, hitting Ahmed in the face. He later died at a local hospital.

Thousands gathered at a cemetery on Thursday to attend the funeral of Ali Jawad Ahmed. There were no reports of incidents during the funeral, but there was a heavy presence of security forces in the area.

Also on Thursday, the Central Governorate Public Prosecution Head Osama Al-Asfoor said no traces of tear gas had been found on the clothes of Ali Jawad Ahmed. "Forensic tests conducted at the Criminal Investigation Directorate (CID) labs revealed no traces of tear gas," Osama Al-Asfoor claimed.

Osama Al-Asfoor previously told the state-run news agency BNA that an investigation was underway to determine the cause of the incident. "There was no reported police action against law-breakers in Sitra at the time the boy's death was reported, except dispersing a small group of around 10 people at 1:15 a.m.," the official said as quoted by BNA.

More than 30 people have been killed in Bahrain since anti-government demonstrations erupted in February, inspired by the popular uprisings which toppled the entrenched regimes of Tunisia and Egypt. The island's Shia majority is demanding political, social and economic reforms from the Sunni royal family.

In mid-March, Bahraini King Hamad Al Khalifa, with help from neighboring Sunni Gulf states, violently put down the country's peaceful protest movement and imposed a state of emergency. Small-scale clashes between security forces and demonstrators have become a near nightly event since emergency rule was lifted in June.

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